Pantagruel

“Et de fact, ouyant le bruyt de ton sçavoir tant inestimable, ay délaissé pays, parens, et maison, et me suis icy transporté, rien ne estimant la longueur du chemin, l’attédiation de la mer, la nouvaulté des contrées, pour seullement to veoir, et conférer avecques toy d’aulcuns passaiges de philosophie, de magie, de alkymie et de caballe, desquelz je doubte, et ne m’en puis contenter mon esprit.”

Above is the content for the senior "half page" that I chose when afforded the opportunity to "express myself" and publicize it to the community of my high school. I'm posting this because I found the picture in a box, and it's contained a mystery of my own creating that I finally took it upon myself to uncover. I didn't want to put up a bunch of photos of friends and I being stupid or some trite quote. I was a complete mess at the time, and I wanted to maintain an air of mystery about myself, but reveal something of that dark and twisted inner world that was my mind and my heart and my spirit. The background is a photograph of a tomb I took in a London cemetery, where I went wandering by myself again and again.

What I'm even bothering to write about this for is to focus on the text. It's a quote from Rabelais' Pantagruel. The language is in what I used to think was some kind of old French - but I just recently researched and found that it's actually an incorporation of Ancient Greek into French that Rabelais executed himself for amusement. At the time I knew absolutely nothing about Rabelais, about Pantagruel (I still don't - I'd like to get my hands on the book and actually read it sometime, the story sounds otherworldy), and I could barely myself discern what the quote meant, or so I thought (I know French fluently, but reading classical texts in the language can be a different matter, especially since I haven't really practiced formal French as opposed to casual speech in over ten years). But the words that I did know reached through the strangeness of the language and my lacking skills of comprehension, and affected something very deep inside of me, and it was in an obscure enough of a casing that I felt it fit to present and represent as "myself." I imagine the fact that I was representing myself with something I didn't fully understand was telling and I think I knew that at the time. It didn't really matter. It captured everything that was painful and beautiful and magnificent and most important to me.

The way I translated it for myself (and still do when I read the strange French-Greek hybrid) was this: "By certain promptings internal and external, I have abandoned everything familiar to me - country, family, and home, and I have brought myself to this strange place - having given no forethought to the length of the journey, the chaos of the oceans to be traversed, the unfamiliarity of the territory - for not a single other reason but to see you, and to discuss with you  a few passages of philosophy, of magic, of alchemy, of the Caballa, though I doubt even this will ease my sickened, weary spirit."

I had no real "you" then to be referring to. It didn't really matter. After years of not knowing the exact translation, I spent a bit of time looking for it. And I was happy to find I wasn't so far off:

"And indeed, having heard the report of your so inestimable knowledge, I have left my country, my friends, my kindred, and my house, and am come thus far, valuing at nothing the length of the way, the tediousness of the sea, nor strangeness of the land, and that only to see you and to confer with you about some passages in philosophy, of geomancy, and of the cabalistic art, whereof I am doubtful and cannot satisfy my mind."

And while I'm at it, I may as well post the other photo that was in the envelope of items to go in the yearbook ;).